Speeches

May112010

It's National Police Week, where we honor the lawmen and the women who protect this great Nation. As we pause to recognize the service and sacrifice of all U.S. law enforcement officers, we also need to remember the men and women who work on the border, our Border Patrol agents. Some have sacrificed their lives putting themselves between the bad guys and us. We owe their families a great debt for those sacrifices, like U.S. Border Patrol Senior Patrol Agent Luis Aguilar, who was killed in the line of duty in 2008. Agent Aguilar was attempting to deploy a set of road spikes to stop a narco-terrorist drug smuggler. The drug smuggler attempted to evade our agents and escape back into Mexico across the Imperial Sand Dunes in the Yuma sector of Arizona. The suspect, driving a Hummer, accelerated his vehicle and intentionally hit Officer Aguilar, and he was killed.

Border Patrol Agent Robert Rosas of the Campo, California, Border Patrol Station was murdered in 2009 while performing his duties. Agent Rosas was responding to suspicious activity in the area notorious for alien and drug smuggling when he was shot and killed by unidentified assailants. The murder occurred in a remote border area near Campo, California, where Agent Rosas was shot several times in the head, execution style. Agent Rosas was 30 years of age.

Even our U.S. Park Rangers aren't safe from these terrorists. In the wake of 9/11, Kris Eggle protected his country by intercepting weapons, thousands of pounds of illegal drugs, and hundreds of illegal lawbreakers from foreign countries. He guarded a 31-mile stretch of our Nation's southern boundary. Kris was shot and killed in the line of duty at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument on August 9, 2002. He was pursuing members of a drug cartel hit squad. They fled into the United States after committing a string of murders in Mexico. Kris was 28 years of age when he was mowed down by these narco-terrorists in Arizona.

Our Border Patrol agents are under constant assault. Not counting the murders, Madam Speaker, I have a chart here that illustrates just in the last few years assaults on our Border Patrol agents. These are the men and women on the border, protecting us from people crossing in. Going back to 2004, there were about 300, almost 400 assaults on our border agents. In 2005, about 680. 2006, 750. And then 2007, 2008, and 2009, all about a thousand assaults on our border agents. Most of these assaults, Madam Speaker, are committed by people crossing the border into the United States illegally and committing assaults on our Border Patrol agents. For some reason, we don't hear much about it in the national media. They seem to be concerned about other issues.

Madam Speaker, we have here what the Border Patrol agents call the ``war wagon.'' This is called the war wagon because they modify their Border Patrol vehicles, their pickup trucks, and they put wire mesh screens over the front windshields, over the side windows. They even protect the lights on top because when they get close to the border, people from foreign countries that are trying to come into the United States pelt our Border Patrol agents with rocks, and they destroy their vehicles. They also happen to harm our Border Patrol agents. So they have to improvise these war wagons to protect themselves from assaults.

During this Police Week, Madam Speaker, when we remember peace officers in this country that were killed, we need to remember the Border Patrol agents that do their duty every day trying to protect our porous border, because they don't get the resources the Federal Government should give them, including the National Guard. They are